Not So Bad
by pleasant-hell
Summary: Brittany tries to explain to everyone that Santana's not really a bad person.


"Who nominated Santana for Class Humanitarian?" Kurt asked, looking up from the voting page in the school newspaper.

"I did," Brittany looked up at him.

Kurt quirked an eyebrow. "I know she's your girlfriend and all, but is humanitarian really the right word to describe her?"

The blonde nodded, "She does like, all this cool stuff for other people."

"Telling them that they look hideous in a sweater does not count," Rachel stated.  
>Brittany rolled her eyes, "No, not like that. There was that one time..."<p>

_"Where are you going?" Brittany asked, watching Santana walk out of the Cheerios' locker room after everyone else left. She turned the opposite direction of the parking lot where her car was._

_"I have to do something," Santana stated, "You can wait in the car."_

_The blonde shook her head and trotted to catch up with Santana. Brittany grew quiet as they approached the huge human cannon that was her fate tomorrow. She didn't even like looking at it that moment, and her stomach flipped a few times as they neared._

_Santana walked to the back of the cannon and knelt down. She pulled a screw driver out of her pocket and opened the back of the control panel._

_"What are you doing?" Brittany asked, tilting her head to the side, her hands nervously fisted in her letter jacket pockets._

_"I'm making it so this thing won't fire," Santana's eyes flickered up to Brittany, "Like I'm going to let Coach Sylvester shoot you out of a cannon."_

"Yeah that was nice, but do you really think she'd let anything happen to you?" Quinn asked.

"No," Brittany shook her head, "There was also the time..."

_"Hello?" Santana said when she answered her phone._

_"Hey!" Brittany grinned, "Do you want to go to the mall? It's the first day of the semi-annual sale. We never miss it."_

_"Oh shit, B," Santana sighed, "I forgot. Can we go later today? I'm kinda already doing something."_

_Brittany was a little disappointed but accepted it. "How about I pick you up when you're ready?"_

_"Awesome," Santana answered, "You can pick me up at four. I'm at the hospital."_

_"You're at the hospital? Are you okay?" Brittany asked._

_Santana laughed, "Yeah, I'm just hanging out with some of the kids here. I gotta go. I'll see you at four okay?"_

_"Yeah, okay," Brittany answered._

_Instead of waiting until four, Brittany got dressed right then. She wanted to see what Santana was doing at the hospital and thought that maybe she could help._

_She wandered around the hallways until she found where the kids were. As she walked around the corner, she heard Santana talking. It sounded like she was reading. She saw a small play area for the kids. Santana was sitting in a chair, reading a book to the children._

_Brittany smiled softly and leaned on the wall across from the play area and listened to the rest of the story. She looked Santana over, seeing that she was in her candy striper uniform. She was wearing a white long sleeved shirt under it and white tights to keep it modest._

_Once the story was over, Santana spotted Brittany. "What are you doing here so early?"_  
><em>"I just came to see if I could help," Brittany offered.<em>

_They read and played and sang with all the little kids around the pediatrics unit until well past seven in the evening._

Tina shrugged, "Her dad works there."

Exasperated, Brittany huffed, "There was also the time...She gave me my first cat that she rescued from a stray dog. I let her name my cat and she named him Charity."

_The rapid knocking on the door tore the Pierces away from their show. Mr. Pierce got up to get it and was surprised by what he found._

_Santana was standing on the front porch, a kitten in her arms wrapped in what seemed to be a sweater. Her eyes were panicked and teary._

_"There was a dog that was attacking her," Santana explained and sniffled, "She's bleeding. I don't know what to do."_

_Mr. Pierce lifted the animal out of Santana's arms and carried her to the kitchen with Santana on his heels. Mrs. Pierce and Brittany ran after them when Mr. Pierce called his wife._

_The blood on the sweater when Mr. Pierce unwrapped it made Brittany's stomach sink. Santana moved to the blonde and wrapped Brittany in her arms._

_"Honey, go get my bag," Mrs. Pierce said to her husband. She gently examined the cat and found the source of the bleeding._

_It didn't take long for Mrs. Pierce to stitch up the tiny kitten and wrap her in a new blanket. She told the girls that it was up in the air as to whether the kitten would make it through the night. They still opted to stay up all night with the tiny grey kitten anyway._

_When Brittany woke up, it was bright outside. She looked next to her on the couch to see Santana cradling the yawning kitten in her arms. The blonde smiled and lifted the kitten out of her arms. That woke Santana up, but she didn't seem to mind._

_"She seems okay," Santana leaned close to Brittany and looked her over._

_Brittany smiled at the kitten. "I've always wanted to kitten."_

_"I know," Santana grinned. "So when she's better I want you to have her."_

_"But you found her."_

_Santana shrugged, "I wouldn't have time to take care of her anyway."_

_"Okay," Brittany ran her fingers over the soft fur of the kitten, careful to steer clear of the stitches. "But you get to name her."_

_Santana looked at the kitten for a while and then at Brittany's loving eyes directed towards the cat. She scratched behind the kitten's ear and said, "Charity."_

Quinn was about to open her mouth to speak when Brittany interrupted her again, "Do you remember that time that Coach Sylvester bought all that chicken for us to put in our bras?" She waited for Quinn to nod before she went on, "Well..."

_"What are we supposed to do with all of these?" Quinn asked, her hands on her hips._

_Apparently Coach Sylvester thought that buying six chicken cutlets for each Cheerio was necessary, leaving the girls to figure out what to do._

_Santana finally said, "I got it."_

_Quinn was just happy that she didn't have to deal with the giant stinking mess and left._

_"Britt," Santana said, "Can you help me get these to my car?"_

_After they were all loaded in Santana's trunk, she gave Brittany some money with a list of things to buy at the store and instructions on where to meet her._

_So half an our later, Brittany walked slowly onto the Lima homeless/women's shelter._

_"Hello," a pleasant looking woman smiled, "What can I do for you?"_

_"I'm supposed to meet my friend here."_

_"Santana?" The woman's eyes lit up. "She's in the kitchen. Follow me."_

_When Brittany stepped into the kitchen, she found Santana standing in the corner humming to herself and spicing the hundreds of chicken cutlets._

_"Let me know if there's anything you girls need," the woman said._

_Santana looked up when she heard the voice and smiled at Brittany, "Did you get all the stuff?"_

_The blonde nodded and set the bags on the counter. She started extracting items and laying them out on the counter._

_"You don't have to do that," Santana told her, "you don't even have to stay. I got this."_

_"I want to help," Brittany stated._

_They spent the next few hours making chicken sopa and grilled chicken. Then they served it to everyone who was gathered in the tattered old dining room._

"Wow," Rachel breathed, "Why didn't she say anything?"

Brittany shrugged, "It's not a big deal for her. She just does it because she likes it. She likes helping people. You can't tell her I told you though."

"Why doesn't she help anyone here?" Finn asked.

"Does anyone here really need help?" Brittany asked back. Finn looked perplexed for a moment while everyone else was blown away by the simple yet profound words.

"Sorry I'm late," Santana stated, as she walked into the choir room. "I had to glare at some kid until he gave himself a swirly." She stopped as she was walking and looked around the room at everyone looking at her. "What?"

"Nothing," Brittany shook her head and took Santana's hand, pulling her down into her lap.

Santana won class humanitarian by a landslide. Not that many people ran for it and people were scared not to vote for her. In her acceptance speech, she told everyone to go volunteer somewhere or she'd personally reinstall the slushie machines all over the school.

So when Rachel went to the animal shelter for her monthly visit, she was surprised to find ten of her classmates already working. When Mike and Tina went to teach music and dance at the community center, there was a workshop next door that a handful of Cheerios were putting on for free. When Kurt and Blaine went to the LBGTQIA resource center to help out, there were already McKinley High t-shirts crawling all over the place.  
>So no one said anything when Santana snipped at people and rolled her eyes because they all knew under that tough exterior was the really great person Brittany had always known.<p> 


End file.
